Books and Literature

News about Books and Literature, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times.

Chronology of Coverage

Jul. 31, 2015

Dwight Garner reviews book Martial Bliss: The Story of The Military Bookman by Margaretta Barton Colt. MORE

Jul. 30, 2015

Sarah Lyall reviews book The Speechwriter: A Brief Education in Politics by Barton Swaim. MORE

Jul. 30, 2015

John Williams reviews books Talk by Linda Rosenkrantz, Speak by Louisa Hall, The Flicker Men by Ted Kosmatka, Imperium by Christian Kracht, The Love She Left Behind by Amanda Coe and Lovers on All Saints' Day: Stories by Juan Gabriel Vasquez. MORE

Jul. 29, 2015

Brooklyn Eagles, group of young Brooklyn Public Library supporters, prepare to award first Brooklyn Eagles Literary Prize, which will be given to one fiction and one nonfiction work meeting reflecting borough's spirit and values. MORE

Jul. 29, 2015

Frank Bruni Op-Ed column expresses alarm at some of observations about lives of American high school students contained in Denise Pope, Maureen Brown and Sarah Miles book Overloaded and Underprepared; points in particular to students' lack of sleep as worrying problem, which also serves to encapsulate great problem of relentless pressure students face. MORE

Jul. 29, 2015

Ann Rule, author who wrote best-selling true-crime books on Ted Bundy and other serial killers, dies at age 83; Rule's breakthrough book The Stranger Beside Me followed years of work at True Detective magazine, and capitalized on her personal relationship with Bundy and her widely praised insight into criminal psychology. MORE

Jul. 29, 2015

Dwight Garner reviews book Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings by Shirley Jackson. MORE

Jul. 28, 2015

Jonathan Martin reviews book Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County: A Family, a Virginia Town, a Civil Rights Battle by Kristen Green. MORE

Jul. 28, 2015

Dr Abigail Zuger reviews book Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery by Dr Henry Marsh. MORE

Jul. 26, 2015

Jul. 26, 2015

Henry Alford reviews book Imperium: A Fiction of the South Seas by Christian Kracht. MORE

Jul. 26, 2015

Sloane Crosley observes that female authors easily create multilayered stories by presenting physical danger without making it the main event. MORE

Jul. 26, 2015

Eliza Kennedy reviews books How to Be A Grown-Up by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, Local Girls by Caroline Zancan, Ally Hughes Has Sex Sometimes by Jules Moulin and Killing Monica by Candace Bushnell. MORE

Jul. 26, 2015

Rivka Galchen and Adam Kirsch debate whether there are literary uses for boring books. MORE

Jul. 25, 2015

Roger Cohen Op-Ed column commends Kamel Daoud novel The Meursault Investigation for humanizing murdered Arab in Albert Camus novel The Stranger in manner that sheds light on contemporary conflicts; holds invisibility, or inability to see one's enemy as human, lies at core of all conflicts; holds only path to understanding for Arabs and Jews, Americans and Iranians and all world's strangers is to become truly visible to one another. MORE

Jul. 25, 2015

Joe Nocera Op-Ed column condemns publication of Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman as one of worst money grabs in history of American publishing; contends Lee's caretaker Tonja Carter discovered manuscript in 2011 and waited for moment when Lee became incapacitated and her family members dead to bring manuscript to Harper Collins, against Lee's wishes; holds hype around book has masked fact that it is rejected first draft, rather than newly-discovered novel. MORE

Jul. 24, 2015

Jul. 24, 2015

Janet Maslin reviews book Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties by Elijah Wald. MORE

Jul. 23, 2015

Dan-el Padilla Peralta, who lived as undocumented immigrant in United States since age 4 and is now postdoctoral fellow in humanities at Columbia University, hopes to further national discussion about immigration policy with memoir Undocumented: A Dominican Boy’s Odyssey From a Homeless Shelter to the Ivy League. MORE

Jul. 23, 2015

Sarah Lyall reviews book Among the Ten Thousand Things by Julia Pierpont. MORE

Jul. 23, 2015

Alexandra Jacobs reviews books My Paris Dream by Kate Betts and Always Pack a Party Dress by Amanda Brooks. MORE

Jul. 22, 2015

Jul. 22, 2015

Dwight Garner reviews book Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, memoir by William Finnegan. MORE

Jul. 22, 2015

Cathy Goldsmith of Random House illustrates painstaking process of constructing Dr Seuss book What Pet Should I Get? from collection of yellowed drawings penned by author around 1950s and 1960s that was discovered in storage box 24 years after his 1991 death. MORE

Jul. 21, 2015

Peter Baker reviews book Putinism: Russia and Its Future With the West by historian Walter Laqueur. MORE

Jul. 21, 2015

Publisher HarperCollins announces latest Harper Lee novel Go Set a Watchman sold more than 1.1 million copies in North America during its first sale week; book, highly anticipated sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird, also set first-day sales records for adult fiction at Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million. MORE

Jul. 21, 2015

Tim Requarth reviews book The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life by Nick Lane. MORE

Jul. 20, 2015

Michiko Kakutani reviews book What Pet Should I Get? by Dr Seuss. MORE

Jul. 19, 2015

Cynthia Barnett reviews book The Weather Experiment: The Pioneers Who Sought to See the Future by Peter Moore. MORE

Jul. 19, 2015

Robert P Crease reviews book Big Science: Ernest Lawrence and the Invention That Launched the Military-Industrial Complex by Michael Hiltzik. MORE

August 2, 2015, Sunday

The author, most recently, of “Lovers on All Saints’ Day” says the toughest thing about translating is being unfaithful to the original: “Doing a little violence to a sentence you love is hard, and many sleepless nights can be caused by...

Must a book review take the form of prose — or can it be pure image? For this first art-themed issue of the Book Review, five pathbreaking contemporary artists create visual works of literary criticism, paying homage to the inspiration they’ve found in fiction, philosophy and poetry.